Inside Paradise Lost: Reading the Designs of Milton's Epic

by David Quint

Inside "Paradise Lost" opens up new readings and ways of reading Milton's epic poem by mapping out the intricacies of its narrative and symbolic designs and by revealing and exploring the deeply allusive texture of its verse. David Quint’s comprehensive study demonstrates how systematic patterns of allusion and keywords give structure and coherence both to individual books of Paradise Lost and to the overarching relationship among its books and episodes. Looking at poems within the poem, Quint provides new interpretations as he takes readers through the major subjects of Paradise Lost ―its relationship to epic tradition and the Bible, its cosmology and politics, and its dramas of human choice.

Quint shows how Milton radically revises the epic tradition and the Genesis story itself by arguing that it is better to create than destroy, by telling the reader to make love, not war, and by appearing to ratify Adam’s decision to fall and die with his wife. The Milton of this Paradise Lost is a Christian humanist who believes in the power and freedom of human moral agency. As this indispensable guide and reference takes us inside the poetry of Milton’s masterpiece, Paradise Lost reveals itself in new formal configurations and unsuspected levels of meaning and design.

Genres: Nonfiction, Criticism

344 pages, Paperback

First published December 22, 2013

Reviews

[Patricia · Rating 5 out of 5]

When I get to feeling jaded about scholarship, I read David Quint. He models how studying literature should open us up to how much it matters.

[Sohail · Rating 3 out of 5]

On the plus side, this book is well-researched, with lots of allusions and supposed allusions explained. On the minus side, it is a book focused almost exclusively on Christian doctorine that takes the subject matter too literally and feels more like religious analysis rather than literary criticism.

[Jeremy]

John Leonard reviews this book in C&L (67.2).